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THE PETITION 



CHARLES GOODYEAR, Jr., 



e2s:eoxjtoi^. 



EITEISIOI OE LETTERS PATENT, 



GRANTED TO CHARLES GOODYEAR, DECEASED, 



FOR THE INVENTION OF 



VULCANIZED INDIA RUBBER. 




NEW-YORK: 
GEORGE F. NESBITT & CO., PRINTERS AND STATIONERS, 

CORNER PEARL AND PINE STS., N. Y. 
1864. 



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PETITION OF CHARLES GOODYEAR, jR. 



To the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States, in Congress Assembled : 

The petition of Charles Goodyear, Jr., of Stam- 
ford, Connecticut, son of Charles Goodyear, de- 
ceased, and executor of his last will and testament, 
on behalf of himself, and of the creditors of the 
estate, and of the members of the family of the 
said Charles Goodyear, respectfully represents as 
follows : 

Charles Goodyear, late of New Haven, Connecti- 
cut, discovered, in his life-time, a process of treat- 
ing India-rubber with heat and sulphur, so as to 
render the product beneficially available for a very 
great number of new and valuable uses. 

The process which he discovered is now publicly 
known as Vulcanization; and all India-rubber goods 
manufactured by means thereof are styled Vulcan- 
ized Goods. 

Mr. Goodyear's attention was first directed to the 
improvement of the manufacture of India-rubber in 
1831 or 1832, and he was engaged, for many years, 
in the preliminary efforts and experiments which 
led to his final discovery of vulcanization ; and, until 
the day of his death, his whole mind and all his 



energies were concentrated upon dcTeloping his 
invention, applying it practically to its multifarious 
uses, and establishing branches of industry founded 
upon it. The original discovery of vulcanization 
was but an incentive to further exertion. It was the 
discovery of a new material in manufactures and the 
industrial arts. The successful application of this 
new material to its proper uses could only be the 
result of a multitude of continuous experiments, 
which were often attended by failure, and always 
by great expenditures. His last days found him still 
engaged in this field of labor, still enthusiastic, still 
making experiments in testing new developments 
and new applications of his invention. His work 
in this regard was, owing to its magnitude, left in- 
complete ; and some of the most useful applications 
of his discovery have been established as practical 
branches of manufacture only since his decease ; 
while many others which he contemplated yet 
await the necessary efibrt and expenditure to be 
brought into existence. 

A patent was granted to Mr. Goodyear for his 
discovery of vulcanization on the 15th of June, 
1844. He was poor, and the only way in which 
he could procure the means to perfect and develope 
his invention, was to grant licenses under the pat- 
ent, in which he reserved to himself a tariff. Soon 
after his invention had been brought into use, 
by the manufacture and sale of articles of cloth- 



ing — such as coats and over-shoes — numerous in- 
fringers of the patent sprang up, filling the mar- 
ket with spurious goods, thereby destroying the 
fair profits of the rightful manufacturers and the 
tariffs reserved by the patentee. It was necessary 
to defend the patent and to prosecute infringers. 
To do this required more money than Mr. Goodyear 
had at his command ; and, in order to secure the 
means necessary to defray the expenses of these 
inevitable litigations, he was obliged, either to com- 
mute the tariffs reserved under his licenses for a 
sum in gross, or to consent to a permanent reduc- 
tion of the agreed tariffs, in consideration of the 
advance of moneys needed for this purpose. 

In one of the litigations which took place in re- 
gard to his patent, one of the witnesses, speaking of 
Mr. Goodyear and of his family, testified as follows : 

The first part of the time they were extremely destitute. 
They had sickness in the family. I was often in, and found them 
very poor, very destitute both for food and fuel. I knew they 
had to go into the fields and woods to glean fuel. They had 
none. They had nothing to buy any with. This was before they 
boarded with us, and while they were keeping house. They told 
me they had no money to buy their bread with from one day to 
another. They did not know how they should get it. The chil- 
dren said they did not know what they should do for food. They 
dug their potatoes before they were half grown, for the sake of 
having something to eat. Their son Charles, eight years old, 
used to say they ought to be thankful that they had the potatoes, 
for they did not know what they should do without them. We 
used to furnish them with milk, and they wished us to take fur- 



6 



niture and bed-clothes in payment, rather than not pay for it. At 

one time they had nothing to eat, and a barrel of flour was un- 
expectedly sent them. They had a child three years old, which 
died at Woburn while they kept house. They were very desti- 
tute at that time. At the funeral, they walked to the grave. The 
child was carried in a wagon. They said they could not afford to 
hire carriages. Mrs. Goodyear had just been confined at the death 
of the child. We often sent them in milk. The neighbors were 
very attentive to them. Wtien they came to board with us they 
were in so much better circumstances that they were able to pay 
for their board, but they had not money to spare to buy much 
clothing. 

Mr. Webster, on the hearing of the case decided 
at Trenton, read in evidence a letter from Mr. Good- 
year, as follows : 

Debtor's Prison, April 21, 1840. 

Gentlemen, — I have the pleasure to invite you to call and see 
me at my lodging on matters of business and to communicate 
with my family, and possibly to establish an India-rubber factory 
for myself on the spot. Do not fail to call on receipt of this, as I 
feel some anxiety on account of my family. My father will 
probably arrange my affairs in relation to this hotel, which, after 
all, is perhaps as good a resting place as any this side the grave. 

Yours, truly, 

CHARLES GOODYEAR. 

Mr. Webster continued : 

He says it is as good a lodging as he may expect this side the 
grave, and hopes his friends will come and see him on India-rubber 
matters, and then speaks of his family and his wife. He had but 
two objects — his family and his discovery. * * -x- * 

Is Charles Goodyear the discoverer of this invention of vul- 
canized rubber ? Is there a man in the world who found out that 



fact before Charles Goodyear ? Who is he? Where is he? On 
what continent does he live ? Who has heard of him ? What 
books treat of him? What man, among all the men on earth, has 
seen him, known him, named him ? I say that there is not in 
the world a human being that can stand up and say that it is his 
invention, except the man who is sitting at that table. I believe 
that the man who sits at that table — Charles Goodyear — is to go 
down to posterity, in the history of the arts in this country, in that 
great class of inventors, at the head of which stands Eobert 
Fulton. 

In giving judgment in favor of Mr. Goodyear, 
Mr. Justice Grier said : 

When genius and patient perseverance have at length suc- 
ceeded, in sjjite of sneers and scoifs, in perfecting some valuable 
invention or discovery, how seldom is it followed by reward ! 
Envy robs him of the honor, while speculators, swindlers and 
pirates, rob him of the profits. Every unsuccessful experimenter 
who did, or did not, come very near making the discovery, now 
claims it Every one who can invent an improvement, or vary its 
form, claims a right to pirate the original discovery. We need not 
summon Morse, or Blanchard, or Woodworth, to prove that this 
is the usual history of every great discovery or invention. 

The present case adds another chapter to this long and uniform 
history. Every man who has made experiments with India-rub- 
ber, sulphur, lead, or any other substance ; who has heated them 
in a stove or furnace ; who has annoyed his family and his neigh- 
bors with sulphurous gas ; who has set i^p a rubber factory and 
failed ; who has made India-rubber goods that no one would buy, 
or, if bought, were returned as worthless ; in fine, all who had 
ceased their experiments and endeavors, because they had not dis- 
covered that such qualities could be given to that substance, are 
now paraded forth as the inventors and discoverers of vulcanized 
India-rubber. Notwithstanding the indomitable energy and persever- 
ance with which this attempt to invalidate the patenthas been pursued, 



8 

the volumes of testimony ivith tchich it is oppressed, and the great 
ability with which it has been canvassed in the argument, we are of 
opinion that the defendant has most signally failed in the attempt to 
show that himself or any other person, discovered and "perfected the 
process of 'manufacturing vulcanized India-rubber before Charles 
Goodyear. 

This litigation continued until about the time of 
the expiration of the first term of the patent ; and 
Charles Goodyear cannot be said to have enjoyed 
quiet possession of his rights, during any portion 
of that term. 

In April, 1858, Mr. Goodyear made application, 
in the manner prescribed by law, to the Commis- 
sioner of Patents, for an extension of his patent. 
In his account of receipts and expenditures, sub- 
mitted upon that application, his receipts from 
the patent were stated to be $162,894.09, and his 
expenditures, 1129,535.46 ; leaving a balance of 
profit, accruing to him from his invention, of 
f 33,358.63 ; but subsequent investigations have 
shown the incorrectness of these figures, and have 
shown the balance to be against him. His appli- 
cation was opposed by Horace H. Day, and by one 
Charles F. Stansbury. who, it was understood, re- 
presented the English manufacturers, Macintosh & 
Co., and Thomas Hancock. The Commissioner, Mr. 
Holt, ordered the extension of the patent for seven 
years, and it was accordingly extended. In decid- 
ing the application, the Commissioner pronounced 



9 

an opinion, whicb, because of the clear and suc- 
cinct manner in which it states the case of Mr. 
Goodyear, is herewith submitted in an Appendix, 
as affording an unanswerable argument upon the 
question of Mr. Goodyear's right to the extension, 
and in the course of which the Commissioner said : 

However much the seeming perplexity ia the applicant's ac- 
count may expose him to cavil, and to that vituperation which 
is so ready a coinage of professional zeal, and however short 
some of the points in the case may fall of that complete elucida- 
tion which could have been desired, there is one fact established 
beyond all controversy, and which stands out from this record 
with painful prominence. At the close of all his toils and sacri- 
fices, and of the humiliations he has been called on to endure, 
this public-spirited inventor, whose life has been worn away in 
advancing the best interests of mankind, is found to be still poor, 
oppressed with debt, and with the winter of age creei^ing upon, 
his shattered constitution. It is perfectly manifest that this is, in 
no degree, the result of vice or improvidence on his part, but is an 
inexorable consequence of the impoverishing experiments insepa- 
rable from the prosecution of his great enterprise, and of that 
prolonged and exhausting strife in which unscrupulous men have 
involved him. He now begs of that country to which the ener- 
gies of his manhood have been so freely and faithfully given, that 
he may be allowed to enjoy, for a few years longer, that precarious 
protection which our most feeble and imperfect laws extend to 
. the fruits of intellectual labor ; and, were the appeal denied, I feel 
that I should be false to the generous spirit of the patent laws, 
and forgetful of the exalted ends which it must ever be the 
crowning glory of those laws to accomplish. 

Mr. Goodyear died July 1st, 1860, having lived 
two years after the extension of his patent ; and, 
during that time he received from his tariffs under 

2 



10 

his patent an annual sum of about ^30,000. He 
left a widow, who is in feeble health : five chil- 
dren, the youngest now only four years of age ; 
one grandchild, the daughter of a deceased daugh- 
ter ; and one adopted child, who are nearly all, 
if not ail, wholly dependent upon the settlement 
of his estate for their pecuniary maintenance and 
support. Since his death, your petitioner, Charles 
Goodyear, junior, has been duly appointed his ex- 
ecutor, and has now the care, control and manage- 
ment of his estate. He found the estate incum- 
bered with a large amount of liabilities and claims. 
Many of them he has audited and admitted ; others 
are in course of adjustment ; and others have been 
and are subjects of troublesome and expensive 
litigation. The largest part of these claims are for 
debts due by Mr. Goodyear, which were incur- 
red prior to the extension of his patent, and which 
should have been included in his account rendered 
to the Commissioner, but which he overlooked 
in that account. If they had been so included, 
the apparent balance of profits of f 33,358.63, aris- 
ing from the use and sale of his invention, would 
have been cancelled, and a large balance would 
have been stated on the other side of the account. 
Mr. Holt had a perception of the probability that this 
would eventually appear to be the fact, foi- he says : 

It is probable, indeed, in view of the whole testimony, it is 
my firm conviction, that, if it were possible to extract from the 



11 

tangled mazes of the multifarious and now half- forgotten trans- 
actions connected with the invention, all the moneys expended 
therein, it would be found that, instead of there being a balance 
to its credit, the balance would be on the other side. 

During the lifetime of Mr. Goodyear, his heavy- 
liabilities were kept in suspense by partial pay- 
ments and by renewals ; so that he himself did 
not know with accuracy their amount ; but since 
his death, and in the course of the settlement of 
the estate, it has become necessary to audit and 
adjust these liabilities ; and they are found to 
amount thus far to the sum of ^191,100.73 of un- 
disputed debts ; while a large amount is in dis- 
pute, and still other amounts are known of, but not 
yet proved. He left no property with which to dis- 
charge those liabilities, except the present, and 
contingent future, interest in the patent, and the 
house he lived in, of small value. All these debts 
were incurred by Mr. Goodyear in the creation of 
these very improvements which have so greatly en- 
riched the world within these few years, and which 
must go on still further to add untold millions 
to the wealth of man ; and now, when the pro- 
tection of the law, which alone gives any pro- 
perty in all this wealth to its producer, is about to 
cease, it is found that he has not appropriated 
to himself an amount of it sufficient to pay the 
expenses of its own creation, and that his family, 
which had a right to expect that the creator of so 



12 

much property should at least be able to provide 
for them those means of subsistence which usually 
result from ordinary industry applied to any ordi- 
nary business, are left without a dollar, and only 
the heirs of an unpaid debt. That so great a 
wrong as this should remain unredressed, when, by 
extending for a short time the protection of the 
law to the property thus created, the debts of 
Charles Goodyear, incurred in its creation, can be 
paid, and some provision made for the support of 
his family, which have suffered privation and po- 
verty that the country might be made rich, would 
be at once to show public ingratitude for great 
services ; and to discourage all others who may 
come after him, impelled by similar inspirations, 
from struggling against the adversities which op- 
pose the progress of the true inventor. The power 
and the duty conferred by the Constitution on 
Congress " to promote the progress of Science and 
Useful Arts," cannot better be exercised than 
by holding out to inventois the assurance, that 
living, they shall be protected in the enjoyment 
of the property they have created, until it re- 
pays the cost of its creation ; and that dying, their 
country will become the guardians of their families, 
and the defenders of their memories, at least so far 
as to protect their property till it pays their debts, 
and secures a competence to those whom they 
leave behind. 



13 

Charles Goodyear crowded into a lifetime the 
work of generations. To accomplish this, he 
spent all that he liad, and borrowed all that 
he honestly could, feeling and often expressing 
his conviction, that his country would, by some 
public act of recompense, enable him to do justice 
to all. So far as his own personal interests were 
concerned, we may judge something of his feel- 
ings by what he has Avritten in his book before 
mentioned. Eeferring to his many disappoint- 
ments and sacrifices made and suffered, he says : 

I am not disposed to repine, find say that I have planted and 
others have gathered the fruits. The advantage of a career in life 
should not be estimated exclusively by the standard of dollars 
and cents, as is too often done. Man has just cause for regret only 
when he sows and no one reaps. 

The nett result of the collection of tariffs by your 
petitioner, applicable to payment of the debts of 
the estate, for the three years since the decease 
of Charles Goodyear, ending on the 1st of July, 
1863, has averaged less than $30,000 per annum. 
If the income from tariffs should average, during 
the whole present term of seven years, the 
amount received by Mr. Goodyear, during its 
first two years, it would equal the sum of 
f 210,000. This would not suffice even to pay the 
debts of Mr. Goodyear, much less to provide for 
his family. 

Your petitioner has not deemed it necessary to 



14 

enter into any detailed statement of the great value 
and importance of this invention to the public. 
The economy and advantage resulting to them from 
its now general adoption and use in manufactures 
and the industrial arts, amount to several millions 
of dollars per annum, even in the present stage of 
its development. 

It is true that the invention of Mr. Goodyear has 
been largely used, both in England and France ; but, 
he never received any income or emolument from 
that use. He was unjustly deprived of all benefit of 
his invention in England, by its unfair appropria- 
tion by Thomas Hancock, who secured a patent 
therefor ; and who subsequently testified that the 
first vulcanized India-rubber which he had ever 
seen, was several samples which Mr, Goodyear 
sent to England, for the purpose of selling his 
invention there. He was deprived of all benefit 
of his invention in France, though a French 
patent for vulcanization was granted to him on 
the 16th of April, 1844, being the first publi- 
cation, in any country, of the process and art 
of vulcanization. It Was alleged, however, that 
Mr. Goodyear permitted the introduction into 
France of some American vulcanized India-rub- 
ber shoes ; and this trivial cause, under the pecu- 
liarities of the French law, deprived him of all 
rights under his patent in France, But both 
France and England acknowledged the value of 



15 

this invention, and the fact that Mr. Goodyear 
was its discoverer. England awarded to him, at 
the World's Fair, in 1851, the Council Medal ; and 
France, at the World's Fair, in 1855, the Grand Medal 
of Honor ; and the Emperor bestowed upon him the 
Cross of the Legion of Honor, which reached 
him while confined in the debtors' prison of Clichy. 

Tour petitioner, therefore, respectfully prays, that 
tlie Letters patent of Charles Goodyear may be ex- 
tended for seven years from the IStli day of June, 
1865. Congress has, in repeated instances, granted 
. similar prayers, when presented by meritorious in- 
ventors who were living, and who were able in their 
lifetime to realize from their inventions both the 
honor and the profit to which they were entitled. 
The present application differs from others, in that it 
is made to enable his survivors to render the most 
grateful tribute to his memory, by the i^ayment of 
those debts which weighed heavily upon him in the 
last hours of his existence, and to provide for those 
helpless ones whose only wealth is the honor of 
bearing the name, and the happiness of having 
shared the affections of this great public benefactor. 

Your petitioner annexes hereto, and submits 
herewith, the draft of a bill for the extension of the 
said letters patent of Charles Goodyear for the 



10 

further term of seven years, which he humbly 
prays may be passed by Congress. 

And your petitioner will ever pray, &e. 

CHARLES GOODYEAR, Jr., Executor. 



TO EXTEND LETTERS PATENT OF CHARLES GOODYEAR, ORIGI- 
NALLY GRANTED JUNE 15TH, 1844, COMMONLY CALLED 
THE PATENT FOR VULCANIZATION. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled: 

Sec. 1. That the patent granted to Charles Goodyear, deceased, 
onthe 15th day of June, 1844, for an improvement in India-rub- 
ber Fabrics, and re-issued to him December 25th, 1849, in two sep- 
arate patents — one being for an improvement in processes for the 
manufacture of India-rubber — and the other being for an improve- 
ment in felting India-rubber with cotton, and again re-issued 
on the 20th day of November, 1860, to Charles Goodyear, Junior, 



i: 

executor of the last will of said Charles Goodyear, deceased, 
for " a new and useful manufacture of Caoutchouc or India-rub- 
ber," and for "a new and useful improvement in the manner of 
preparing fabrics of Caoutchouc or India-rubber," — a description 
of which said improvements is given in the schedules annexed to 
the said last-named re-issued letters patent, numbered 1084 and 
1085 respectively— be, and the same are, and that each of said last- 
named re-issued letters patent be, and the same is, hereby extend- 
ed to the said Charles Goodyear, junior, executor as aforesaid 
for the term of seven years from and after the 15th day of June, 
in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-live ; and 
the Commissioner of Patents is hereby directed to make a certifi- 
cate of such extension, in the name of the said Charles Goodyear, 
Junior, executor of the last will of said Charles Goodyear, de- 
ceased, and to append an authenticated copy thereof to a duly cer- 
tified copy of said original letters patent, and to the original of 
each of said last-named re-issued letters patent, whenever the same 
shall be requested by the said executor, his successors or assigns. 

Sec. 2. Aiid be it further enacted, That all persons or corporations 
who shall hold licenses to manufacture under said original and 
extended letters patent on the 15th of June, 1865, shall be entitled, 
under this extension, to a continuance of such licenses ; provided 
they shall agree to pay and shall pay said executor a tariff, to be 
charged by said executor, not to exceed five per cent, of 
the nett amount of sales of goods or articles which shall be 
manufactured under such licenses ; and if they shall refuse to 
pay said tariff as aforesaid, then their said licenses shall terminate 
and be void. 
3 



^ppE:[srr>ix. 



BEFOEE THE HON. JOSEPH HOLT, 

Commissioner of Patents of the United States. 



In the Matter of the AiDplication of 
Charles Goodyear, for the Exten- 
sion of Letters Patent granted to i 
him June 1.5th, 1844, for an •' Im- 
provement in India-Rubber Fab-f 
rics," as re-issned to him Decemberv 
25th, 1849, in two separate patents,, 
one being for an "Improvement int. 
Processes for the Manufacture ofl 
India-Rubber," and the other being I 
for an " Improvement in Felting In- 
dia-Rubber with Cotton Fibre." 



Deciiiiion of the Commissioner. 

United States Patent Office, ) 
June 14th, 1858. j 

In the matter of the application of Charles Goodyear, for the 
extension of a patent granted to him for " Improvement in India- 
rubber Fabrics" on the 15th day of June, 1844, and which was 
re-issued in two separate patents on the 25th day of December, 
1849, under the designations of " Improvement in Processes for 
the Manufacture of India-Rubber" and " Improvement in Felting 
India-Rubber with Cotton Fibre." 

It appears that on the 30th January, 1844, the applicant, through 
his agent, (Newton,) obtained from the Bonglish Government a pa- 
tent for this invention or discovery, known in popular parlance as 
a "process for vulcanizing India-rubber," and on the 15th of June 
thereafter the patent now sought to be extended was issued from 
this Office. It is assumed and insisted by the contestants that the 
American patent should have borne even date with the English, 
and that, in law, it expired with it on the 30th January last, and, 



19 

in consequence, it is denied that the Commissioner lias any au- 
thority to entertain a petition for its renewal. What shall be the 
date and duration of a patent is a question which must be decided 
by this Office on each original application, and, in the case under 
consideration, it was determined tliat it should bear date the 15th 
June, 1844, and should secure a monopoly of the invention for 
fourteen years thereafter. If this was irregular in view of the 
English patent, it did not render that issued by this Office void, 
as was held by the Supreme Court, in 15 Howard 112, (O'Reilly 
et al. vs. Morse et al.) Being at most voidable, it would seem that 
it should be treated as valid until vacated by the judgment of 
some judicial tribunal. At all events, whatever may be the 
power of the Courts over the instrument, it is not believed to be 
competent for the Commissioner, in a summary and, in some re- 
spects, a collateral proceeding like this, to revise and reverse a 
former decision of this Office under which so many rights have 
been vested. Were his power, however, plenary in the matter, I 
should not hesitate to hold that the provisions oi' law cited do not 
sustain this objection, which has been taken in the nature of a plea 
to the jurisdiction. The 8th section of the act of 1836, and the 
5th section of that of 1839, being in pari materia, must be con- 
strued together, and as the latter is not, in its terms, a repeal of 
the former, it can, according to a well-settled principle of construc- 
tion, be allowed to have that effect only so far as the provisions 
of the two are clearly incompatible. The statute of 1836 declares 
that nothing therein contained " shall be construed to deprive an 
original and true inventor of the right to a patent for his invention 
by reason of his having previously taken out lettere paten tthere- 
for in a foreign country, and the same having been published at 
any time within six months next preceding the filing of his specifica- 
tion and drawings. And tchenever the ajyplicant shall request it, the 
patent shall take date from the filing of the specification and draw- 
ings ; not, however, exceeding six months prior to the actual issu- 
ing of the patent." It is sufficiently clear that this clause applies 
only to those cases in which the foreign patent has been issued 
he/ore, but within six months of the filing of the specification and 
drawings. A reference to the record, however, shows that the 
specification and drawings in this case were filed on the loth of 
January, 1844, so that the foreign patent, instead of having been 
taken out he/ore, as contemplated by the act, was in fact taken out 
fifteen days after the filing of the specification and drawings in 
this Office. This would seem to relieve the case entirely from the 
operation of the provision. But, should it be treated as subject to 
it, as the American patent was issued four and a half months after 
the publication of the English, the most that could be claimed 
would be that the applicant might, "on request,'' have had his 
patent ante-dated so as to have reached back to the filing of his 



20 

specification and drawings, but he luas not hound to do so. It is 
manifestly a privilege bestowed and not a duty imposed upon him. 
He did not choose to avail himself of that privilege, and hence the 
patent went out properly bearing its actual date. The act of 1839 
asserts that " no person shall be debarred from receiving a patent 
for any invention or discovery, as provided in the act app'roved 
on the 4th July, 1836, to which this is additional, by reason of 
the same having been patented in a foreign country viore than six 
months prior to his a2}plicatio7i : Provided, That the same shall not 
have been introduced into public and common use in the United 
States prior to the application for such patent: And provided, also, 
That in all cases every such patent shall be limited to the term of 
fourteen years from the date or publication of such letters patent." 
It will be perceived that this provision is confined expressly to an 
invention or discovery for which letters patent shall have been 
taken out in a foreign country more than six months prior to the 
filing of the application here, and declares such invention or dis- 
covery patentable under limitations. The act of 1836 referred to 
this class of cases, and, in effect, treated them as unpatentable. 
To this extent it is repealed by the act of 1889, hecavse irreconcilable 
with it. But the act of 1836 refers to another and very distinct 
class of cases in which the foreign letters patent u-ere not pmblished 
more t/ian six months he/ore the date of the application here, and de- 
clares them patentable. To this latter class no allusion is made 
by the act of 1889, and as this act is in this respect in no degree 
inconsistent with that of 1836, and, as it professes to be not abro- 
gatory of, but " additional" to it, it must, upon the soundest prin- 
ciples of interpretation, be held that this feature of the act of 1836 
remains in full force. The closing language of the clause quoted 
is not regarded as in conflict with the construction insisted on. 
The words are, " in all cases every such patent shall be limited," etc. 
What is intended by " every such patent ?" Undoubtedly the kind 
of patent spoken of in the preceding part of the section, and no 
other, to wit — a patent based on an invention for which letters 
patent had been issued in a foreign country more than six months 
before the filing of the ajjplication here. It may be very well sup- 
posed that Congress might consider six months as too small a frac- 
tion of time to require its introduction as a part of the lifetime of 
the patent, and would, therefore, leave it to be embraced or not, at 
the option of the applicant, while, to guard against abuse, if the 
period were longer, the inclusion of the whole might be consistent- 
ly and properly exacted. 

The novelty and original patentability of this invention, as well 
as its great public utility, are fully established by the report of the 
examiner and by the depositions on file. But two leading ques- 
tions, therefore, remain to be disposed of : 



21 

1st. Has the applicant used due diligence in developing his in- 
vention and in introducing it into public use ? 

2d. Has he, from the use and sale of the invention, received a 
reasonable remuneration for the time, ingenuity and expense be- 
stowed upon the same and the introduction thereof into use? 

Upon the first point, the testimony alike of the applicant and of 
the contestants is concurrent and conclusive. From the first mo- 
ment that the conception entered his mind until his complete suc- 
cess — embracing a period of from sixteen to eighteen years — he 
applied himself unceasingly and enthusiastically to its perfection, 
and to its introduction into use, iu every form that his fruitful 
genius could devise. So intensely were his faculties concentrated 
upon it that he seems to have been incapable of thought or of ac- 
tion upon any other subject. He had no other occupation, was 
inspired by no other hope, cherished no other ambition. He car- 
ried continually about his person a piece of India-rubber, and into 
the ears of all who would listen he poured incessantly the story of 
his experiments and the glowing language of his prophesies. He 
was, according to the witnesses, completely absorbed by it, both 
by day and night, pursuing it with untiring energy and with al- 
most superhuman perseverance. Not only were the powers of his 
mind and body thus ardently devoted to the invention and its in- 
troduction into iise, but every dollar he possessed or could com- 
mand through the resources of his credit, or the influences of 
friendship, was uncalculatingly cast into that seething cauldron of 
experiment which was allowed no rei30se. The very bed on which 
his wife slept, and the linen that covered his table, were seized and 
sold to pay his board, and we see him, with his stricken household, 
following in the funeral of his child on foot, because he had no 
means with which to hire a carriage. His family had to endure 
privations almost surpassing belief, being frequently without an 
article of food in their house, or fuel in the coldest weather — and 
indeed it is said that they could not have lived through the winter 
of 1839 but for the kind oiiices of a few charitable friends. They 
are represented as gathering sticks in the woods and on the edges 
of the highways, with which to cook their meals, and digging the 
potatoes of their little garden before they were half grown, while 
one of his hungry children, in a spirit worthy of his father, is heard 
expressing his thanks that this much had been spared to them. 
We often find him arrested and incarcerated in the debtor's prison, 
but even amid its gloom his vision of the future never grew dim, 
his faith in his ultimate triumph never faltered. Undismayed by 
discomfitures and sorrows which might well have broken the 
stoutest spirit, his language everywhere, and under all circum- 
stances, was that of encouragement and of a profound conviction 
of final success. Not only in the United States did he thus exert 
himself to establish and apply to every possible use his invention, 



22 

but in England, France, and other countries of Europe, lie zeal- 
ously pursued the same career. In 1855, he appeared at the 
World's Fair in Paris, and the golden medal and the Grand Cross 
of the Legion of Honor were awarded to him as the representative 
of his country's inventive genius. Fortune, however, while thus 
caressing him with one hand, was at the same moment smiting 
him with the other ; for we learn from the testimony that these 
brilliant memorials passed from the Emperor and reached their 
honored recipient, then the occupant of a debtor's prison among 
strangers and in a foreign land — thus adding yet another to that 
long sad catalogue of public benefactors who have stood neglected 
and imjioverished in the midst of the waving harvest of blessings 
they had bestowed upon their race. Throughout all these scenes 
of trial, so vividly depicted by the evidence, he derived no support 
from the sympathies of the public. While the community at large 
seem to have looked on him as one chasing a phantom, there were 
times when even his best friends turned away from him as an idle 
visionary, and he was fated to encounter on every side sneers and 
ridicule, to which each bafQed experiment, and the pecuniary loss 
it inflicted, added a yet keener edge. The mercenary naturally 
enough pronounced his expenditures, so freely made, culpably 
wasteful ; the selfish and the narrow-minded greeted the expres- 
sion of his enlarged and far-reaching views as the ravings of an 
enthusiast ; while it is fair to infer from the depositions, that not a 
few of the timid and plodding who cling, tremblingly apprehen- 
sive of change, to the beaten paths of human thought and action, 
regarded him as wandering on the very brink of insanity, if not 
already jjursuing its wild and flickering lights. Such in all times 
has been the fate of the greatest spirits that have appeared on the 
arena of human discovery, and such will probably continue to be 
the doom of all whose stalwart strides carry them in advance of 
the race to which they belong. With such a record of toil, of pri- 
vation, of courage, and of perseverance in the midst of discourage- 
ments the most depressing, it is safe to affirm that not only has 
the applicant used that due diligence enjoined by law, but that 
his diligence has been, in degree and in merit, perhaps, without 
parallel in the annals of invention. 

Before entering upon an examination of the second leading 
question, several preliminary issues raised by the contestants must 
be met and decided. 

The account of expenditures and receipts originally presented, 
it is admitted, was too general in its terms to be accepted as a com- 
pliance with the requirements of the statute. Hence, subsequently, 
in Ajiril, an additional or amended account was offered, which, in 
consequence of the absence of the applicant in England, was not 
sworn to by him until the 23d of that month, and was not filed in 
this Office, as thus verified, until the 8th of May. This amended 



23 

statement was intended, not as a substitute for the original, but aS 
a correction of certain inaccuracies wbicli had crept into it, and as 
furnishing the details which law and usage demand. It is object- 
ed that it should not be considered, because, when first lodged 
here, it was without the oath of the applicant, and because, when 
that oath was appended on the 8th May, it was too late for the 
contestants to take their rebutting testimony. It will be observed 
that there is nothing in the circumstances attending this delay- 
calculated to excite a suspicion of a desire on the part of the ap- 
plicant to suppress the truth by stifling inquiry; and it must be 
also borne in mind, that, although there is a rule in this OflSce on 
the subject, the statute is silent as to the time when the account 
shall be filed. It is true that it must be " under oath," and the 
oath of the patentee was no doubt contemjjiated by the framers 
of the law ; but it is also true that cases have arisen in which that 
oath was necessarily and properly dispensed with — as when the 
patentee had died or become insane. Other cases may well be 
imagined in which the oath of parties entirely disinterested and 
having a thorough knowledge of the subject-matter would be 
more satisfactory to the judicial mind than that of the patentee. 
The amended account was, as early as the 8th of April, verified 
by the oaths of a number of disinterested witnesses professing an 
acquaintance with the transactions to which it relates, and this is 
claimed to be a substantial compliance with the statute. Assum- 
ing that the contestants were not bound to take rebutting testi- 
mony until after the account had been sworn to by the applicant, 
yet they had notice of the existence and character of that account, 
through a copy served on them as early as the 20 th April, and 
this was sufficient to put them upon inquiry. Being thus dis- 
tinctly apprised of what it was proposed to prove, they could 
have occupied themselves in discovering such evidence as might 
exist in their favor, and in taking at least the preliminary steps to 
the examination of the witnesses. The time ibr taking the proof 
having been extended, there were at least sixteen days, between the 
8th and 24th of May, allowed for assailing the account by coun- 
teracting testimony, and we are warranted ii'om the record in pre- 
suming that this time was, with the greatest zeal and activity, de- 
voted to the taking of depositions, and that all the witnesses who 
could be found, having knowledge of facts deemed important for 
the contestants, and who were willing to depose, were examined. 
It is true that Mr. Cozzens, in his deposition, expresses the opin- 
ion " that there had not been anything like enough time, since the 
filing of the applicant's petition and statement, to properly pre- 
pare an opposition thereto." Waiving the obvious criticisms upon 
this language, it is a complete answer to say, that the name of no 
witness is given whom the contestants were prevented from ex- 
amining for want of time, nor is any fact material to them alleged 



to exist and to be susceptible of proof, but which they were de- 
nied an opportunity of establishing. In the absence of any such 
specific averment, it is impossible to decide, in the language of a 
rule of this Office, that " a substantial injury has been wrought to 
the party raising the objection," and hence, according to that rule, 
such objection cannot prevail on the final hearing. When a party 
frankly avows that he has committed an error in a judicial oath, 
and asks the privilege of correcting it under the same sanctions, a 
tribunal whose mission is the ascertainment of truth, should rather 
encoru'age him to make such correction than rebuke him for an 
offer to do so. 

Another question to be answered before proceeding to the main 
inquiry is, whether, in determining the adequacy of the remuner- 
ation received by the applicant, the receipts of his assignees and 
licensees — admitted to amount to many millions — should be 
charged to the patent. The first impression of my mind was 
favorable to the position taken by the contestants, but a more 
critical examination of the statute has led me to an opposite con- 
clusion. At the time of the passage of the act of 1836, it was the 
universal custom of inventors to sell and assign the rights secured 
to them by their patents, and this course on their part has been 
constantly contemplated and sanctioned by law. Hence, the stat- 
ute declares that if the " patentee" shall fail, from " the use and 
sale of his invention," to realize a reasonable remuneration, he 
shall be entitled to an extension. The law, in its enactments, is 
generally found to be a faithful reflection of the actual life of the 
world. It was well known that inventors, as a class, were par- 
ticularly liable to be over-reached in their contracts, and to be 
driven to dispose of their inventions at ruinous rates, under the 
pressure of poverty, and often before their utility had been fully 
demonstrated. Hence the generous guarantee was given them 
that if fi'om such " sales," no matter how made, and from such 
" use" as they might choose to make of their inventions, they 
were unable to secure a reasonable compensation, their monopoly 
should be further extended. There is not the remotest allusion 
to their assignees and licensees, and, as the reason of the enact- 
ment does not reach them, it would be an unsound principle of 
construction which should embrace them by implication. A fur- 
ther reason why they should not be thus embraced is found in the 
fact that a very large part of the profits of these assignees, who 
are generally manufactui'ers, is the product of their own capital 
and enterprise in association with the invention, and could not 
therefore be properly charged to its account in this proceeding. 
Assignees and licensees constitute a very numerous class, scat- 
tered throughout the length and breadth of the land, and their 
profits from inventions must be regarded as the profits of that 
great public of which they are so important a part. The very 



25 

large sums whicli they are alleged, by all the witnesses who have 
spoken on the subject, to have made from this invention, is but 
another of the ever-multiplying proofs of its extraordinary value 
to the world ; for it is safe to conclude that the consumers of the 
fabrics have been equally benefitted with the manufacturers who 
produce them. If on an application for an extension, the paten- 
tee were chargeable with the receipts of his assignees and licen- 
sees, it would then follow that he would be bound to exhibit them 
in his accounts — a manifest impossibility, as it is scarcely neces- 
sary to say, in the great majority of cases. 

The first step in determining the sufficiency of the remuneration 
is to ascertain, as far as practicable, the amount of the applicant's 
receipts and expenditures in connection with the invention. The 
apparently discrepant and informal character of the accounts filed 
has provoked much severity of criticism, and some denunciation 
on the part of counsel. It is admitted they have not the precis- 
ion and symmeteiy which belong to the products of the counting- 
room, and which might have been imparted to them by the ap- 
plicant, had he been a merchant's clerk instead of the brilliant 
and impulsive genius that he is. In explanation of the generality 
and uncertainty for which it is insisted they are marked, it is in 
i:)roof that the applicant never kept any books or memoranda from 
which more reliable statements could be prepared. In this respect, 
his course of life has been in entire harmony with that of the class 
to which he belongs. Inventors, and other men of high creative 
genius, have ever been distinguished for a total want of what is 
called " business habits." Completely engrossed by some favor- 
ite theory, and living in the dazzling dreams of their own imagin- 
ation, they scorn the counsels and restraints of worldly thrift, and 
fling from them the petty cares of the mere man of commerce as 
the lion shakes a stinging insect from his mane. The law, in its 
wisdom, takes cognizance of human character, and deals with 
men and with classes of men as it finds them. It seems, in this 
instance, to have assumed, and justly, that if we would have the 
magnificent creations of genius, we must take them with all those 
infirmities which seem as inseparable from them as spots are from 
the sun. Hence, the statute does not require that the accounts of 
inventors shall have that formality and that severe exactitude 
■which might well have been claimed of a merchant with his led- 
ger open before him. All that is insisted on is, that the state- 
ment furnished shall be " sufficientl// in detail to exhibit a true and 
faithful account of Joss and jjroftt. in any manner accruing to him 
from and by reason of said invention." It is manifest that it is 
to the results — which indicate "loss and profit" — rather than the 
minute elements of the transactions which form the subject of the 
account, that the law looks. The applicant's statement, as amend- 
ed, appears to have been compiled with the most laborious care, 

4 



26 

and from every source of information accessible to him or liis at- 
torneys. It is regarded as fully conforming to the letter and 
spirit of the statute. The principal discrepancy between the ori- 
ginal and amended statement is satisfactorily explained. The ap- 
plicant held at the moment three patents for the processes con- 
nected with the manufacture of India-rubber, viz., that of Chaflee, 
that of Hay ward, and that for his own vulcanizing process. In 
all his contracts he transferred these three patents together, mak- 
ing no designation, in the body of the assignments, of the esti- 
mate placed upon either of them separately. In his original 
statement, he inadvertently charges to his own patent the whole 
of the receipts from this source ; iu his amendment, he sets the 
Chaflee and Hayward patents down as properly chargeable with 
one-fourth of the proceeds of such sales, and makes, accordingly, 
a corresponding deduction from his exhibit of receipts. The lan- 
guage of his first statement, properly interpreted in the light of 
the assignments themselves, justified this step. Whatever those 
patents have cost him, they were his projaerty, and it was due to 
truth and to the claim now under consideration that their actual 
value should have been ascertained. The witnesses who speak of 
them prove conclusively that the applicant has rather under than 
over-rated them, which relieves him from all imputation in the 
matter. 

What, then, has been the amount of the applicant's remuner- 
ation ? His account, as amended, exhiliits $1C2,81M.09 of re- 
ceipts, and $129,o35.46 of expenditures — thus showing a profit of 
$33,358.63. Numerous intelligent and unimpeached witnesses 
having intimate relations with the applicant, and acquainted with 
his business affairs, have deposed in reference to this account, 
and their testimony, without an exception, powerfully supports 
its truth. Considering the remoteness and complicated character 
of the transactions, the statements in this paper are illustrated 
and sustained with singular force. The rebutting evidence as- 
sails directly no item either of the receipts or expenditures, but 
consists of the opinions and conjectures of a large number of wit- 
nesses who clearly had no means of knowing either the truth or 
falsehood of the matters set forth in the account. They profess to 
believe that the applicant could not have expended such large 
sums in his exjDeriments, because he was poor; and this is the 
sole basis of almost every opinion expressed on the subject. Had 
these witnesses known — what this record makes so apparent — the 
overwhelming debts which have hung over the applicant tiiroagh- 
out his long and self-sacrificing career, and many of which still 
bear him down, his enormous outlays would not have been to 
them so impenetrable a mystery. The very elaborate report of 
the Examiner, after a severe scrutiny of the expenditures and re- 
ceipts as exhibited, re-states the account, and, in doing so, in- 



2T 

creases the applicant's profits to $114,128.09. In arriving, how- 
ever, at this conclusion, he has excluded two items of expendi- 
ture, which I am well satisfied should have been retained. The 
first is for $13,310, and is not allowed because for disbursements 
occurring hefore the invention or discovery was made. The act 
of Congress directs an inquiry into the " loss and profit in any 
manner accruing to him (the inventor) from and by reason of said 
invention." Whether we consult the letter or i-eason of the law, 
I entertain no doubt but that expenditures made in the progi'ess 
of experiments prece.ding the invention, but looking to it, are as 
clearly chargeable to the patent as those made afterward, either 
in perfecting it or introducing it into use. The other item is 
$46,084.46, as set forth in E.^hibit No. 2, and I am at a loss to 
jierceive any sufficient reason for its rejection. The applicant 
alleges expressly in his sworn statement, that the whole of this 
sum " was expended by him in perfecting his said invention and 
bringing the same into use." De Forest, who advanced the 
money, and who holds the drafts specified in the Exhibit, when 
interrogated on the point, says explicitly that it was applied by 
the applicant to "experiments in developing his improvements 
and new applications and branches of the India-rubber manufac- 
ture ;" and this statement is uncontradicted. The fact averred, 
and not denied, that De Forest has not been reimbursed these ad- 
vances, which constitute a subsisting debt on the part of the ap- 
plicant, furnishes no argument against their being charged to the 
patent. All moneys expended upon the invention and its intro- 
duction into use are properly so chargeable, no matter whence or 
how obtained. Kestoring, then, these items, and adopting the 
other corrections of the E.\aminer, there will still remain to the 
credit of the invention a clear profit of $54,733.03. The appli- 
cant, in his amended statement, acting under the promptings of 
the same high sense of honor which led him to satisfy an indebt- 
edness of $35,000 from which he had been discharged by a cer- 
tificate of bankruptcy, shrinks from debiting the patent with any 
expenditures, the particulars of wdiich he cannot recall with some 
degree of certainty, but, while doing so, unhesitatingly expresses 
the belief that they were quite as large as the sums set forth in 
gross in the first account. It is probable — indeed, in view of the 
whole testimony, it is my firm conviction — that if it were possible 
to extract from the tangled mazes of the multifarious and now 
half-forgotten transactions connected with the invention, all the 
monejrs expended therein, it would be found that, instead of there 
being a balance to its credit, the balance would be on the other 
side. I am justified in arriving at this conclusion from the fact 
that, although the applicant has had no other occupation or busi- 
ness, yet, instead of having now in hand this sura of $54,733.63, 
he is admitted to be penniless and overwhelmed with debt — and 



28 

this, too, notwithstanding his life is shown to have been temper- 
ate, frugal and, in all respects, self-denying. Being reimbursed his 
actual " expenses," is this sum of $o-i,73o.63 a reasonable re- 
muneration to the applicant for the "ingenuity and time" be- 
stowed on the invention and the introduction thereof into use ? 

An earnest endeavor has been made to depreciate the ingenuity 
displayed in the invention, by representing the discovery to have 
been the result I'atherof " accident" than of scientific investigation. 
As early as 1834r-'5, Mr. Goodyear seems to have formed a most 
exalted estimate of the capabilities, as a material for manufacture, 
of the gum known as caoutchouc or India-rubber. This gum had 
been previously extensively employed in the fabrication of a 
variety of articles, but, owing to their indifl'erent tpiality, all con- 
cerned in these enterprizes, as well as in those which followed for 
a series of years afterward, were involved in bankruptcy and ruin. 
The fiibrics thus made could not keep the market, because they 
were found to grow rigid under the influence of cold, and to soften 
and become sticky under that of heat, while they rapidly decom- 
posed when brought into contact with perspiration and the animal 
oils. The applicant was thoroughly convinced that these quali- 
ties, which had proved so disastrous to tlie trade, could be re- 
moved, and he set himself resolutely to work to ascertain the pro- 
cess for accomplishing this result. Sulphur had already been 
advantageously combined with India-rubber, by Hay ward, so that 
the discovery had been approached to its very verge. The step, 
however, which remained to be taken, short as it was, was indis- 
pensable, and witliout it all those which had preceded it would 
have been unavailing. Science coukl afford but little assistance 
in the inquir}', for, as the event proved, the most potent element 
in the process was too subtle to be disclosed by the severest chem- 
ical analysis. The applicant had therefore to pursue the investi- 
gation gropingly ; but he persisted in it with an ardor and a cour- 
age which nothing could abate or daunt. His aim was definite, 
his conviction as to its attainability complete. As one who 
searches for a hidden treasure in a fiekl where he knows it is to 
be found, so pursued he his explorations in quest of this secret. 
He sought it on the right hand and on tlie left, by day and by 
night, in the midst of ceaseless toil and lavish expenditure, and 
by the light of every form of experiment which his most fer- 
tile genius and daring spirit could suggest. He became complete- 
ly master of everything known in regard to the properties of the 
material which it was his ambition to improve, and so thoroughly 
was he imbued with the soul of his inquiry, and so intensely 
quiclcened was his vigilance, that no phenomenon, however min- 
ute, could meet his eye, no sound, however faint, could fall upon 
his ear, without his at once detecting and appreciating its bearing 
upon the great problem whose solution he was seeking. From 



29 

four to five years were passed in these unremitted labors, when an 
incident occurred which at once revealed the long-sought truth. 
And it is a singular coincidence, that the spark of light yielded 
by this incident, was elicited by a collision, so to speak, the result 
of that intense zeal which, so far as health and fortune were con- 
cerned, had been the consuming fire of his life. In one of those 
animated conversations so habitual to him, in reference to his ex- 
periments, a piece of India-rubber combined with sulphur, which 
he held in his hand as the text of all his discoui'ses, was by a vio- 
lent gesture thrown into a burning sLove near which he was stand- 
ing. When taken out, after having been subjected to a high de- 
gree of heat, he saw, what it may be safely affirmed would have 
escaped the notice of all others — that a complete transformation 
had taken place, and that an entirely new product — since so felici- 
tously termed " elastic metal" — was the consequence. When sub- 
jected to further tests, the thrilling conviction burst upon him that 
success had at length crowned his etforts, and that the mystery he 
had so long wooed, now stood unveiled before him. His history in 
this respect is altogether jiarallel with that of the greatest inventors 
and discoverers who have preceded him. The lamp had swung 
for centuries in the Cathedral of Pisa, but of the thronging multi- 
tudes who worshipped there, none had heeded the lessons which 
it taught. It was reserved for the profound and observant intel- 
lect of young Galileo to extract from its oscillations the true laws 
of the pendulum, which led to the creation of an infallible meas- 
ure of time. The theory of universal gravitation loses nothing of 
its grandeur or value because suggested by the fixlling of an apple 
from the tree. In all lands, by teeming millions, this phenomenon 
had been observed, but to none had it imparted instruction — to 
none had it spoken of that wonderful secret which lurked beneath 
its simple features. At length its " still small voice" fell upon the 
delicate and appreciative ear of one whom it startled into inquiry. 
The light thus afforded, to which all had been blind, was indeed 
dim and twinkling ; but, following its guidance, as one who traces 
back the dawn, the great Newton soon plunged into the full-orbed 
splendors of a discovery confessedl}^ the most brilliant which has 
gilded and ennobled the annals of science. On all the hearth- 
stones of the civilized world, for thousands of years, the kettle had 
boiled and lifted its lid by the expansive power of its steam ; yet 
for none had this seemingly trite and ever-recurring incident been 
significant — to none had it announced that measureless power of 
which it was the humble but distinct exponent. At length the 
movement cauglit the eye of a lonely student of nature, then a 
prisoner in the Tower of London, and in the soil of his prolific 
mind it proved the rapidly-expanding germ of that steam-engine 
whose triumphs have changed the social, political and commercial 
aspects of the globe. So, India-rubber in combination witli sul- 



30 

phur may by accident have been exposed to a high degree of heat 
often before without attracting the attention of any ; and it is safe 
to allege that it might have been thus exjiosed a thousand times 
afterwards without the world's having been the wiser or wealthier 
for it. The thorough self-culture and training of the applicant 
and his unwearied researches prepared hira at once to seize upon, 
to comprehend and embody in a practical form, the truth he 
sought, the moment it presented itself, no matter how dimly, to 
him. This was his merit — the same in kind with that of the most 
illustrious inventors who have appeared in the world, and by that 
of but a few of them surpassed in degree. It is a figure of speech 
— but an exalted mode of expression — which assigns to man any 
part in the work of creation. In his very best estate, he is but a 
ministering priest at her altar, and when he has reached the high- 
est walk in the drama of intellectual power to which his feeble 
steps can ascend, he is still but an humble translator of the lan- 
guages of nature. It is a fact which singularly increases the 
credit due to this inventor, that the very path in which he finally 
achieved success was the one which the experience of the past 
had taught him to shun. A low degree of heat had been applied 
to a combination of India-rubber and sulphur, and it had melted 
nnder it, so that heat — the increased intensity of which consum- 
mated the discovery — -was the very element which he had felt 
himself admonished to avoid. The discovery being made, the 
applicant soon thereafter added white lead to the combination, 
which rendered it complete, and, assuming that his mission was 
but begun, he bravely bent himself to the task of surmounting the 
obstacles which still frowned upon him on every side. These ob- 
stacles, so graphically sketched in the testimony, seem to have 
been almost unprecedented. Capitalists shrunk away from the 
discovery, so confidently announced, as a chimera, and manufac- 
turers, who had suffered so deeply by the India-rubber business, 
denied it their confidence. Its practicability had to be demon- 
strated by a long series of illustrations, which the total want of 
experience rendered protracted and often ruinously expensive. 
Every inch occupied in the enlarging field of its usefulness had to 
be conquered by many sacrifices, while, of the Protean-formed 
applications to which it was destined to attain, there was not one 
that did not involve an outlay of treasure, of toil, and high artistic 
skill. All these, from the beginning to the present hour, have 
been bestowed — unceasingly bestowed — upon it, and as the fruits 
of all these have been and are still being reaped by the public, 
the applicant is entitled to remuneration for them. 

Has the applicant been remunerated for the time which he 
has devoted to this invention, and to its introduction into use ? 

It is extremely diflicult to estimate in the coin of dollars and 
cents the worth of eighteen years of the prime of human life — 



31 

especially so, wlien that life is one of lofty genius, of indomitable 
enterprise, and of stainless virtues. It is, however, about that 
period of precisely such a life, that has been consecrated to the 
pursuit and development of this discovery — nor would a shorter 
pei'iod of time have sufficed for the arduous and perplexing task. 
This declaration may be made with the more emphasis, because, 
in all the volumes of testimony filed, there is not one word found 
tending to its contradiction. Throughout those long and toilsome 
years it is apparent that there has been no compromise with the 
suggestions of avarice or with the claims to self-indulgence and ease. 
It has already been fully shown that the applicant's fortune, his 
health, the comforts of his family, the freshness of his early and 
the patient energies of his later manhood, have all been unhesitat- 
ingly melted down in the crucible of this inquiry, and he is now 
seen tottering toward that grave which miist soon open in his 
path, with nothing left of the lieroic and athletic man but what 
remains of the maimed and scarred soldier on the battlefield — a 
wreck which every great and generous people have taken fondly 
to their bosom. The time of the indolent, the selfish, the dissolute 
and the dull is little worth to a world which they rather cumber 
than bless by their presence, but the time of the gifted, the brave, 
the philanthropic and unconquerable sons of genius, has for man- 
kind a value which we should but feebly express in the arithmetic 
of dollars. But while we may have no means by which to measure 
with unerring accuracy the intrinsic worth of the ingenuity and 
time which have been expended, and cannot by any analysis 
weigh or compute their ingredients, there remains to us one 
standard by which a proximate estimate at least may be reached 
• — that is, the results which have been produced. What that time 
and ingenuity have yielded to the public is the true test of their 
value, alike to that public and to the inventor ; for, what the 
former have received the latter must, upon every principle of 
sound logic, be held to have parted with. What, then, have been 
the results of the discovery and introduction into use of the 
vulcanizing process ? The testimony is very full upon this point. 
We learn that through this instrumentality a laige foreign com- 
merce has been created in the raw material, and an inland trade 
in the India-rubber fidjrics amounting to between four and five 
million of dollars annually ; that extensive India-rubber manu- 
factories have grown up, giving profitable investment to some 
seven million of dollars of capital, and active employment to 
.some ten thousand operatives ; and that a large portion of these 
fabrics is intimately connected with human comfort and the pre- 
servation of human life. Not to enumerate more of the articles 
produced by this process, it W'ould be hazarding nothing to say 
that the shoes and wearing apparel perfected b}' it and now 
cheaply and abundantly made, and almost universally in use, 



32 

have saved thousands from a premature death, and may save mil- 
lions in the ages which are to come. In the presence of these vast 
and still expanding achievements of this invention, the criticisms 
which have been made upon the applicant's accounts, as though 
they were some petty grocer's bill, shrink into insignificance, and 
indeed can scarcely be listened to without a blush. We have, 
however, a yet more definite basis on which to rest our judgment 
— the testimony of Hayward and llaskins. Both have long been 
India-rubber manufacturers under the vulcanizing process, and 
the former made the valuable discovery of combining surphur 
with the gum, for which a patent was granted to him. Their 
depositions are marked by frankness, and leave no doubt of 
their perfect acquaintance with this great interest in all its ramifi- 
cations and aspects. Hayward says that the vulcanizing process 
for the next seven years would be worth to the public one 
million of dollars ; if so, it should have been worth two millions 
for the last fourteen years. Haskins does not hesitate to estimate 
the process at " many millions of dollars." It should be observed 
that the evidence of the contestants does not reduce these estimates. 
It is not possible to escape from the conclusion to which state- 
ments so emphatic, and coming from sources so fully entitled to 
credit, lead us. If, then, this process is worth two million of 
dollars, the applicant has received but a little more than one- 
fortieth part of the remuneration which he was entitled to claim. 

It has been assumed, as a means of avoiding the force of these 
estimates, that the applicant is entitled to receive from the public, 
not what the invention is now worth, developed and established 
as it is, but what it was worth when the patent issued. '^Fhis view 
has been urged with much persistence and plausibility, but it has 
not impressed me as liberal or sound. When the invention came 
timid and struggling into existence, meeting in every quarter with 
scoffs and distrust, had it been offered for sale in the market, it 
would probably have commanded a few thousand dollars — possibly 
less. But to say that its value is to be measured by what it was then 
considered to be worth, would be to determine that the character 
of the tree is to be judged rather by the green than by the ripe 
fruit found upon its branches. The present expanded and pros- 
perous condition of the invention is mainly owing to the genius 
and unceasing struggles of the applicant, and he muy justly reap 
what he has sown and so diligently cultivated. In the adjustment 
of machinery to accomplish the ends so distinctly pointed out 
by the inventor, and in the manipulations of the gum and treat- 
ment of the fabrics in the various stages of their manufacture, it 
is admitted that many improvements have been made by skilful 
mechanics and operatives, and these have their utility and import- 
ance; but to allow such labors to rival or depreciate the clnims of 
the applicant, would be to rank the simple ploughman of the fields 



33 

with that sublime and beneficent Providence which creates alike 
the soil out of which the harvest springs and the sunshine and 
the showers by which it is nurtured and matured. 

Another and most jiotent reason why this patent should be ex- 
tended is found in the acknowledged fact that the public have 
not kept the faith which they plighted with the applicant when 
he covenanted to surrender to them a produce which was, in effect, 
the concentrated essence of the physical and intellectual energies 
of his entire life. The public stipulated with him that he should 
peacefully enjoy for fourteen years the monopoly created by his 
patent, and, had he been permitted to do so, he would no doubt long 
since have realized an ample remuneration ; but, so far from this 
having been the case, no inventor probably has ever been so harassed, 
so trampled upon, so plundered by that sordid and licentious class 
of infringers known in the parlance of the world, with no 
exaggeration of phrase, as "pirates." The spoliation of their 
incessant guerilla warfare upon his defenceless rights have un- 
questionably amovinted to millions. In the very front rank of this 
predatory band stands one who sustains in this case the double and 
most convenient character of contestant and witness ; and it is but a 
subdued expression of my estimate of the deposition he has 
lodged, to say, that this Parthian shaft — the last that he could 
hurl at an invention which he has so long and so remorselessly 
pursued — is a fitting finale to that career which the public justice 
of the country has so signally rebuked. 

Important as are, to the parties to this issue, the immediate 
consequences bound up with it, they are insignificant indeed as 
compared with the value to the public of the principle involved. 
From the very foundation of this government, it has been its 
settled policy to secure a just reward to all inventors, and it is to 
the inflexible maintenance of this policy that we are indebted for 
the unparalleled advancement which, as a people, we have made in 
the useful arts. All that is glorious in our past or hopeful in our 
future, is indissolubly linked with that cause of human progress 
of which inventors are the ])reu:c chevaliers. It is no poetic trans- 
lation of the abiding sentiment of the country to say, that they 
are the true jewels of the nation to which they belong, and that a 
solicitude for the protection of their rights and interests should 
find a place in every throb of the national heart. Sadly helpless 
as a class, and offering, in the glittering creations of their own 
genius, the strongest temptations to unscrupulous cupidity, they, 
of all men, have most need of the shelter of the public law, 
while, in view of their philanthi-opic labors, they are, of all men, 
most entitled to claim it. The schemes of the politician and of 
the statesman may subserve the purposes of the hour, and the 
teachings of the moralist may I'cmain with the generation to 
which they are addressed; but all these must pass away, while the 
5 



34 

fruits of the inventor's genius will endure as imperishable memo- 
rials, and, surviving the wreck of creeds and systems, alike of 
politics, religion and philosophy, will diffuse their blessings to all 
lands and throughout all ages. 

However much the seeming ]>erplexity in the applicant's account 
may expose him to cavil, and to that vituperation which is so ready a 
coinage of professional zeal, and however short some of the points 
in the case may fall of that complete elucidation which could have 
been desired, there is one fact established beyond all controversy, 
and which stands out from this record with painful prominence. At 
the close of all his toils and sacrifices, and of the humiliations he 
has been called on to endure, this public-spirited inventor, whose 
life has been worn away in advancing the best interests of man- 
kind, is found to be still poor, oppressed with debt, and with the 
winter of age creeping upon his shattered constitution. It is 
perfectly manifest tliat this is in no degree the result of vice or 
improvidence on his part, but is an inexorable consequence of the 
impoverishing experiments inseparable from the prosecution of his 
great enterj^rise, and of that prolonged and exhausting strife in which 
unscrupulous men have involved him. He now begs of that 
country to which the energies of his manhood have been so 
freely and faithfullygiven that he may be allowed to enjoy for a 
few years longer that precarious protection which our most feeble 
and imperfect laws extend to the fruits of intellectual labor ; and, 
were the appeal deni(.d, I feel that I should be false to the 
generous spirit of the patent laws, and forgetful of the exalted 
ends which it must ever be the crowning glory of those laws to 
accompiisl). 

The patent will, therefore, be extended for seven years from the 
15th June, 1858. 

J. HOLT, Commissioner. 










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